All Roads Lead
by H.J. Bender
Summary: The Prince of Hell is left for dead on a desolate desert highway. Johnny Blaze is the man who finds him, and takes it upon himself to cure his evil ways. Can it be done, or is the Devil's son beyond all redemption? DISCONTINUED
1. Roads

The West was founded by cowboys and steam engines, by those bold and brave enough to strike out beyond the great rocky spine of America to scratch their fortunes from the hot desert sand. It was built with dust and sweat and iron, tortured by devils and outlaws. The railroad was the artery that carried blood to the isolated cities; some prospered from ores and oil, others fell to ruin and became the ghost towns whose eerie skeletons still speckle the most forsaken parts of the southwest.

Like any frontier, the West was rich with sin, ripe with greed and corruption. Loyalty was bought and sold, the law of the land being as savage and ruthless as the sun-stained environment in which the settlers lived, clutching onto their hopes. Survivors consisted of those stronger and smarter and faster than the rest. The tears of the meek and the frail saturate the unforgiving soil to this day, shed out of shame. Guns and gold and whiskey were the currency—this was man's country, and only those fit to endure it had the right to call themselves men.

The ruggedness of the territory was appealing to adventurous souls, but it was the souls which drew the devils out west.

Hells Canyon. Devil's Peak. Death Valley. These names were hardly coincidental. In this untamed region of America, men confronted evil face to face, walked side by side with their demons, played hands of poker with unholy beings over shots of bourbon. It was a dog-eat-dog world. Justice was dealt in terms of equality: an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg. For surely as men who double-crossed one another faced death, demons who betrayed their own were forced to bear the consequences of their treason. And like men, rank and title did not exempt one from receiving his just deserts . . . not even if he was the son of the Devil himself.


	2. Ruin

The sky was oil-black, the stars glittering like gems in a deep mine, shining faintly in a moonless sky and down upon a bare ridge of parched desert. An old highway stretched itself across the dirt like a dying man, the pavement cracked with time and the paint all but broiled away from years beneath a scorching sun. Some yards away an even older set of railroad tracks lay upon a manmade bank of eroding gravel. The line had long ago been shut down, and the only trains that traveled it now were ghosts of those steaming, whistling beasts. The boards were warped and rotted, choked with desert scrubs and the rusty remains of iron pins that once held the rail together.

A diamondback slithered up over the old steel girders, its sensitive tongue flicking in search of food. The night was calm and still, no breeze blew. Then a sudden wind swept up from the earth itself, carrying itself across the plain. The snake coiled up defensively and froze, its rattle poised to ward off predators and its head ready to strike should the warning go unheeded. These guards were unnecessary, however; the four shadowy figures that appeared beside the tracks had no intention of harming an effigy of their Lord.

The stars watched with cold indifference as two of the silhouettes passed a limp body between them. One held while the other delivered the blows. The third offered his enthusiasm to the violence that followed.

"Hit him again," said the faceless shadow, and watched as another punch landed on the already purple cheek of a dark haired youth who could barely stand on his feet. "And again!"

Another blow, this one to the stomach. The victim bent himself in half, gasping as both pain and physics stole his breath. His attacker relented, and the one holding his arms watched as he coughed and vomited blood onto the bleached pavement, swallowed from an assault that began hours ago.

"I think he's had enough," he said. "We should toss him."

"Not yet," said the third. "I haven't had my turn."

The first attacker stepped politely aside and allowed his partner to do as he pleased. He turned away when the blows began to fall and stared up at the sky appreciatively. The crack of bone and the slap of flesh echoed shallowly across the ridge, the only sound in the night aside from the sharp cries of pain, though they were few and brief. The will of the vain and proud seldom breaks so easily.

A few minutes of this merciless battery marked the limit of the youth's resilience; his knees buckled and his captor allowed him to crumple to the ground. He lay there in a bleeding, broken heap, face down and submissive, yet this was not a warrant for mercy.

"Scream for me, worm," mocked the one who had been restraining him, and a sharp black boot struck his side. There was a muffled, meaty pop as the rib cracked beneath the blow.

The youth lifted his head—blood-drenched and blackened with bruises—but refused to cry. He gritted his teeth and writhed on the pavement in agonizing pain, eyes clenched shut, bloodied fingers scratching against the asphalt. His sobs remained buried in his throat along with his pleas for mercy. He would not give his punishers the satisfaction of seeing his tears.

"He has yet to beg," said his latest attacker. "Admirable, really, considering his age. He would have made a fine lord."

"Don't blaspheme," warned the other. "Usurpers have no place among us." He glared down at the small figure huddled on the road. "Especially those who seek to undo the work of our Master."

Another swift kick and the youth curled himself into a ball, moaning softly with each shaking, soggy breath he drew.

"Come on," said the first to his companions. "We've done enough here. The sun will finish what we've started."

The three figures converged behind the beaten body and together strode down the highway, never looking back, and vanished into the black desert with the next gust of unnatural wind.

The night which had before seemed to have been holding its breath slowly exhaled, and the diamondback uncoiled itself and continued on its journey. It slithered down the rocky embankment and across a dry, narrow ditch, eventually making its way to the crumbling blacktop that was still warm from the day's heat. The snake pressed on, driven by its hunger, and paused only briefly when it came to the obstacle blocking its path. A few flicks of its curious tongue detected the strong scent of blood, but instinct told it that this blood was not its food; this thing was dying, and snakes prey only upon the living.

The rattler gracefully maneuvered around the motionless body that lay beside the waning white lines, avoiding the spreading pool of blood as it resumed its hunt.

How ironic it would have been if the snake had realized that the injured creature it was leaving behind was the son of the greatest Serpent of all.


	3. Rescue

A dust trail rose up behind a guttering black speck on a secluded ribbon of unpaved road: Nowhere, USA. The golden desert burned and shimmered beneath the Arizona sun, concocting mirages and making the clusters of pipe-organ cacti dance in the distance. The heat was thick enough to cut, heavy and oppressive. A man could die out here on foot—the air was that suffocating.

Hot white light glinted off the chrome of a Harley Davidson, dazzling to the point of blinding. The man in the low-slung saddle wore no helmet. A honey-blond ponytail whipped back and forth against his shoulder blades, too long to be an honest man's, too short to be a ruffian's. His future, the road ahead and nothing else, reflected in the lenses of his deep black sunglasses, masking a pair of eyes that had seen too much since they opened thirty-six years ago. He wore snakeskin boots and weathered jeans that hadn't touched soap and water in weeks. They were smudged with dirt and grease. The black leather jacket tied around his waist flapped in the wind behind him while a sweat-stained wifebeater left his arms exposed to the sun; they were tanned but not burned. Nothing could burn him.

The front wheel bucked over a ragged edge of pavement, the back wheel following in a graceful turn. The man was glad to feel the blacktop beneath his tires once more, though his sun-beaten face remained set in its stone-like expression of sternness. He opened the throttle and roared off down the double-yellow, those trademark V-twins choking and snarling like a pair of ferocious cougars.

The road stretched on across the flat, empty waste until the end couldn't be seen for the mirages. The only other path that kept it company was a decaying railway line that was laid out beside it—an old couple who had died together, were buried together, and forgotten together.

The man carried no compass, no maps. All he knew was that he was heading north-northeast and that the oasis of Vamori, Arizona was behind him. God only knew where this nameless asphalt snake would lead him. Not that it mattered; he believed that everything which came to pass was meant to pass, and if glory or destruction awaited him down the line, so be it. He would be ready. He felt the directions in his bones and obeyed the guiding force within him that nudged his body toward a mysterious destination. An invisible beacon was drawing him closer to his purpose, his reason. His eternal curse. And nothing that stood in his path could alter the course of his destiny.

Except for this.

He saw the dark, circling specks in the sky above and wondered briefly how they managed to survive out here with almost nothing to scavenge. He slowed, hoping out of morbid curiosity to catch sight of whatever had died out in this godforsaken place. Soon enough he saw the hunched backs of half a dozen vultures rise up out of the shimmering heat. They were gathered around a black thing, jostling and croaking. The corpse was large, and as the man drew closer he imagined that it was human.

Impossible. No man could have made it all the way out here on foot. This was the Sonora Desert for Christ's sake. Nothing lived out here.

But as he rolled up beside the kill, he saw that it was unquestionably a man. The body lay partially on its side, legs drawn up semi-fetal, the arm beneath it stretched out in pathetic desperation and the other thrown over the face. What was once pale white skin had burned, blistered and peeled beneath the sun's murderous rays. Locks of matted black hair that perhaps had shined or been stroked by a woman's beautiful hand was now as lifeless and dirt-coated as the rest of the body. Aside from the slim forearms and a few slivers of skin peeking from between tears in the victim's clothing, no other flesh could be seen. The garments—black boots, black pants, black shirt—appeared to belong to those of a wealthy gambler.

The man on the bike cut the engine and put down the kickstand. Beads of sweat immediately appeared on his brow in absence of the wind. He wiped it away with his bare wrist and turned his head toward the sun, letting its searing radiation pour over his face. It was sweltering out here. He couldn't stay stopped for long.

With a weary grunt he stood up and swung his leg over his Harley. The buzzards that had been pecking at the corpse rasped in annoyance and scattered, half-flying half-hopping to regroup on the rusty rails and stare wistfully down at their interrupted meal. The man regarded them with disdain. They were only doing their job, he reminded himself. Just the road crew breaking for lunch.

He walked over to the body and crouched down to take a closer look. An irregular circle of dried blood stained the pavement, connected by a swath of crimson to the corpse: John Doe had dragged himself to the edge of the road before finally dying; a bare hand with blood-encrusted nails rested in the sand. The image was a sad one, as if he'd just wanted to touch earth one last time before leaving it. The rest of the body lay cooking on the hot tarmac. Strange that the stench of decomposition could not be smelled, even in this smothering heat.

The man shuffled closer on his haunches and removed his sunglasses. A pair of blue eyes was revealed, bordered by crow's feet and squinting in the brightness. They'd seen a lot of violence in their time, but nothing so quietly brutal as this. He drew a long breath through his nose and sighed, studying the victim from head to foot. By the cut of his jib he appeared to be a young guy, mid-twenties or so, probably another hotshot from Vegas with enough money and enemies to land him a job out here feeding vultures. Damn shame, dying this young.

The man glumly reached out and put his hand on the poor bastard's shoulder, turning him over. The arm hiding the face slid away and the man's blood suddenly turned to ice.

"Oh God in Heaven."

He rose halfway, stumbled, fell backward onto the pavement. His heart hammered in his chest like a fiendish blacksmith, sending the blood roaring through his head. The hellish memories he had tried so hard to repress for the past four years came screaming back to him amidst flames and blood. Names, places, faces flared up like old brands brought back to life: Ghost. Texas. Roxanne. Contract. Devil. Slade. Bounty. Rider. Fallen. Venganza. Demon. Son-

"—Blackheart."

The word whispered between Johnny Blaze's lips like a fearful incantation. _Blackheart._

The Prince of Hell lay dead and still, his cruel, pitiless blue eyes shut forever. Dark bruises blotted his once-handsome face like rotten spots on a tomato. Blood was crusted around his nose and his dry, parched lips. His lids were swollen, his upper lip split wide open. Somebody had beaten the shit out of him and left him to die out here. Blaze could only imagine who and why.

He reached out tentatively, like one would reach for a coiled viper, and rolled a strand of his enemy's dark hair between his fingertips. _I didn't know he was still alive_, he thought, his eyes darting across the familiar, hated face. _I thought I killed him in San Venganza_ . . . Johnny wondered what the ambitious demon had been up to since then.

"Shit," he muttered tiredly, shaking his head. "Looks like you fucked up for the last time, huh."

The corpse did not reply.

Blaze slid his sunglasses back onto his nose and rubbed the sweat from his brow. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow all wrong; whether it was the place or the method or the fact that he was the one to find him, being dumped out in the desert like a sack of garbage and eaten piecemeal by buzzards was not how the life of the world's unholiest terror was supposed to end. Not even a dog deserved to die like this.

Johnny felt oddly emotional in this situation, disturbed and confused. Disappointed and relieved. It was more than coincidence, of that he was certain. What were the odds of the Ghost Rider finding the Devil's son out here in the doldrums of the West? A trillion to one, that's what. Something was going on here. Some sort of cosmic conspiracy. Blaze felt it in his soul where his own personal hell dwelt, screaming for vengeance at sunset. But why? To what end? What was the point of discovering that his greatest enemy had already been slain? It made no sense to Johnny. He could only speculate.

Gently he laid his hand on Blackheart's forehead, more to reassure himself than make a gesture of sympathy. "It shouldn't have been like this," he said quietly. "You didn't deserve this."

With a final sigh he stood to his feet and turned his back on it all, prepared to let nature take its course. Then he felt coolness on his fingers. Johnny raised them and lifted his sunglasses. Moisture shined on his fingerprints, clear and slick. He sniffed and then, against his better judgment, brushed his tongue against the wetness.

Salt.

Blaze stopped breathing. He slowly turned, unable to calm his panicking heart.

Dead men don't sweat.

"Oh God," he said. "No. Not me . . ."

The last piece finally slid into place, sense and meaning revealed in their infinite, beautiful perfection. Johnny stared at the game on Fate's chessboard, the one he had no idea he'd been playing for the past four years.

Check, said God.


	4. Retreat

The highway that sprawled south was surrounded on both sides by oceans of burning yellow sand. It spilled onto the pavement and eroded its edges year by year, grain by grain, as if Mother Earth were picking at a scab that mankind had gouged into her skin. She worked patiently to erase the scar—time was on her side, after all. Sparse fields of Mormon Tea and creosote bush speckled the landscape like liver spots, immobile witnesses to a glinting streak that passed through their midst with a mechanical growl.

The sun had reached its zenith and was making its way west now, its heat baking through denim and leather and into Blaze's right leg. That whole side of his body was bathed and broiling in those severely-angled sunbeams. Even the wind rushing up from the road provided no relief. Wave after wave of sweltering air infused with the scent of bitumen and dirt rolled over Johnny's sweat-spangled face. Another mile, another layer. He downshifted unconsciously and gave the engine a little more throttle.

Blaze had never been a religious man, but he was praying now. Praying for patience. Praying for deliverance. Praying to see a town appear on the horizon. He knew there was one around here somewhere, he could swear on it. Almost. Or maybe he was just so spooked that his brain couldn't cope with the possibility of spending another minute with a half-dead demon strapped to his back. There _had_ to be a town. God wouldn't put him in this situation if there wasn't going to be a town . . . would He?

Johnny swallowed dryly and fidgeted in the saddle, trying to keep his mind off of all the things that could go wrong if his unconscious passenger suddenly came to. He'd bound the demon's hands together at the wrists with a belt and slipped them around his neck, a way of keeping him from sliding off the bike. He lay slumped against Blaze's back now, that living breathing embodiment of The End, all blood and bruises and blasphemy, his black hair scattering in the wind, his sweat soaking through Johnny's thin cotton tank. It made his skin crawl, the way skin crawled when the flat side of a razor was scraped across it—so close to cutting. So close to Death.

Blaze's knuckles twitched on the throttle. His teeth ground together. He could feel it sizzling in his guts. He could feel it tightening in his balls. He could taste it in his mouth, that hot smokiness coating the back of his tongue as he fought to suppress the Urge. It was more than a struggle of conscience for Johnny; it was a battle to keep himself from pulling over on the side of the road and disposing of this thing he carried with him. For nothing so inspired the Spirit of Vengeance to burst forth as the presence of true evil, even despite the mortal terrors of its human host.

_I don't want this_, he protested internally, swallowing down the acrid flavor in his throat. _I can't do this. Why me? Of all the six-fucking-billion people on the planet, why did you have to pick _me_?_

No answer from the sky above. Only a grim, watchful silence.

* * *

The light of day was beginning to yellow with age when the sign came into view, and Johnny slowed to get a good look at it. He didn't trust his eyes or his mind to believe that anything was real anymore.

But the rotted relic didn't disappear as he approached; it was solid and tangible. He came to a stop a few yards away, planting both boots firmly on the ground and steadying his heavy metal horse. Vibrations from the chugging engine buzzed through the bike, humming with impatience as it waited. The shuddering reflections in the side mirrors made the road behind look like an earthquake in full tilt.

Heat poured off the road the same as the perspiration from Johnny's face. He was swimming in it now, especially where he and Blackheart touched. The engine idled monotonously as he sat squinting upward, the flat of his hand shading his sunglasses.

It was little more than a heat-splintered piece of plywood nailed to a pair of rickety two-by-fours. A hand-painted cross marked all four corners of the panel. _Bienvenido a San Miguel,_ it read, _Población 40_. _Todos los caminos llevan a Dios. _Johnny didn't know Spanish as well as a true Texan should, but he understood that he was entering a town called San Miguel and there were only 40 residents. He also recognized the word "roads" and "God" in the quotation below, but the rest escaped him. He didn't think he wanted to know anyway—he'd had enough of prophetic coincidences for one day.

Three twists of the throttle turned the Harley's purr into a snarl, and Johnny drew his feet up as the bike went forward, gradually speeding up until nothing but a thin trail of settling dust told that hellfire and brimstone had passed this way.

The stucco walls of the _Iglesia de San Miguel_ burned orange in the sunset, its eastern face bathed in cool shadows. It used to be white, but over the years it had tarnished to a sickly yellow pallor. It sat in the dust on the outer curve of the road like an old weathered hitchhiker waiting for a ride, the front doors shedding paint in sweaty coils. A cross stood watch high on the rounded gable overlooking the doors, a man with his arms spread open for an embrace that had yet to come. The bell tower loomed to the right, the bell motionless and tangled in a net of ropes. Tiles of shattered terra cotta lay around the perimeter of the church, the decrepit roof resembling an old fish with some of its scales missing. It had a deserted look about it, and it wasn't all that far from the truth. Only one cleric remained, and he shuffled slowly out of the desert toward the church, the hem of his faded black vestments stained red with dirt.

He was Father Fernándo Manuelo Espinoza, eighty-six years old, and he was as shabby and broken as his church. He walked briskly for a man of his age, even though he carried a yoke dangling two empty buckets on his bony shoulders. He was thin, his face brown and wrinkled, his cheeks sunken with age, etched with deep vertical lines alongside his thin lips. He wore a ring of thin gray hair around his head, sparse enough on top to allow for sunburn. He was returning from his daily mission of charity and looking forward to the onset of dusk.

He smiled to himself, remembering how the bell used to ring out and summon parishioners to Mass. In those days, San Miguel had been alive and young. The church had filled every Sunday, and busy shops had lined the street. Children's shouts and laughter could be heard from every end of town. Houses had sat together in neighborly clusters. Strings of drying laundry had blown in the wind. Trees and birds and green things had grown everywhere. Now there was nothing left but a dried-out husk, an empty shell of crumbling houses and sad faces.

Father Espinoza stepped into the shadow of the church and unloaded his burden with a groan. His bones creaked and popped. Then a new sound broke the silence of the desert—a sound that he hadn't heard in years.

The old man straightened his back and raised his watery eyes toward the road. A glimmer of light. The rumble of an engine. A motorcycle. He stared in wonder as it approached the curve in the road, _his _curve in the road, and began to slow down.

_No_, said something in Father Espinoza's soul, _keep going. Do not stop here._

But the motorcycle stopped. It pulled off in front of the church, right in the shadow of its cross, and stopped. The priest watched as a weary-looking man with red hair struck down the kickstand and shut off the engine. He removed his sunglasses, tucked them into his collar, and awkwardly dismounted his bike. He pulled his passenger, a limp-looking young man dressed in solid black, into his arms. Then he walked toward the steps of the _Iglesia de San Miguel_. He stopped short of Father Espinoza and stared at the old man desperately.

"_Por favor_," came the stranger's broken Spanish. "I need help."

Father Espinoza's eyes studied the man. His face seemed honest enough, but he was dressed like trouble. And there was something about him that he instinctively disliked.

"Please, you've gotta help me. _Habla Ingles?_ Listen, I've got no place else to go and my . . . my friend needs help. Can we stay here?"

Father Espinoza finally dared to allow his eyes to settle on the body the stranger carried. A feeling of intense and implacable terror took hold of his heart, and he knew without question that this bloody heap of mortal flesh was an abomination, a fiend from the darkest well of the Pit, a vassal of Satan and the Destroyer of Worlds. The priest's arthritic hand clasped the cross that hung from his neck and clenched it until the white of bone showed through the skin of his scarred knuckles.

"_Diablo_," he wheezed, his voice frail and reedy as he continued to stare at Blackheart. "_Monstruo!_" He raised his face to Johnny. "You can no stay here. Go!"

"Please," begged Blaze. "Please, I . . . I was sent here."

"By who?"

Johnny couldn't bring himself to say it; he lifted his head and stared up at the cross high above. Father Espinoza followed his gaze and drew a deep breath when the implication hit him. For a long, silent moment the icon of redemption seemed to look down at them all, measuring. Then Father Espinoza turned to regard the stranger.

"_Todos los caminos llevan a Dios_," he said.

"I don't understa—"

"All road lead to God." The priest gestured toward the sky, then to himself. "But He lead you to me. And I can no help you, _señor_. You must go."

"Wait, you don't understand!" Johnny cried, stepping forward heavily. His arms ached from holding his burden. "I've got no place else to go. You're my last hope. And . . . I have to save him."

"Safe him?" repeated Father Espinoza. "Safe him from what?"

"From sin. Evil. Himself, whatever you wanna call it, I don't know. I don't even think he's gonna survive the night, but if he does I'm . . . I'm gonna try to help him. I've got to."

The Father frowned. "You can no help de Devil."

"I can try."

"Why?"

The question left Johnny fumbling for an answer. Why _was_ he doing this? "Because I believe everything happens for a reason," he said finally. "I believe everyone is here for a reason."

"Then do you believe in God, _señor_?"

"I've seen too much not to." He licked his dry lips. "Please. Will you help me?"

A few moments passed in the empty, breathless waste of San Miguel. Then Father Espinoza pushed open the doors of his church. "This way."


	5. Reluctance

The interior of the _Iglesia de San Miguel_ was humble and sparse, little more than four bare white walls under a lofty ceiling. Untidy bird nests sat cradled in the joints of the rafters, and the gentle cooing of roosting pigeons was the only sound that filled the hot silence of the late afternoon. Bird droppings stained most of the pews that sat in quiet congregation facing the empty pulpit. Then the stillness of the church, along with its aura of spiritual peace, was abruptly shattered.

The moment Johnny Blaze crossed the threshold with his otherworldly burden, the pigeons scattered as if lighting had struck the roof. They jettisoned out through the open windows with a lunatic flapping of wings. Pale gray feathers slowly drifted to the floor after the exodus, almost as if angels had fled before the Devil. Or his progeny.

Blaze followed the nervous figure of Father Espinoza across the shallow foyer and past the holy water font, cradling Blackheart's limp, heavy body in his arms like a wounded bride. The matrimonial feeling only amplified itself as he walked down the aisle in the priest's hurried wake. _To have and to hold._ _For better or worse_, Blaze couldn't help but think. _'Til death do us part. Christ almighty, what am I _doing_ here?_

He glanced around anxiously. Plain whitewashed walls. A dusty plankwood floor. Windows without panes. The smell of wax and sand. This place engendered the same feeling of emptiness as the godforsaken desert outside. The altar was practically bare except for a large wooden cross with the Christ's body nailed to it, a thin, gaunt, pathetic human form with large suffering eyes, bleeding forever and ever for the sins of mankind. Johnny, who had been raised sans-denomination, especially of the Catholic persuasion, had never understood the morbid worship of such a gruesome icon. To him it seemed unnecessarily sick and perverse, but he wasn't about to openly criticize Christianity's fascination with blood, torture and death; he already had enough religious problems to deal with. Like the one he was carrying.

There was a round window high in the wall over the altar, and it was the only source of color in the washed-out drabness of the sanctuary: stained glass depicting the Sacred Heart on a blue background, spewing a fountain of orange flames from its top, bleeding drops from its bottom-left ventricle, haloed by a Crown of Thorns that pierced its circumference.

_More religious gore_, thought Johnny. But the setting sun spilled light through the glass and cast down a rainbow pool in the aisle, like a window to Oz. Red and gold and blue, colors made so much more beautiful for being in a monochrome hell like the American southwest.

As Johnny stepped across the Technicolor oval of light, he felt the fear in his heart loosen its grip a little. Whispers of hope seeped through his mind. Maybe things weren't going to be so bad. Maybe he could do this task, however impossible it seemed, and earn a few points with the Good Guys. Maybe he'd even get some professional help for all his troubles. Just a little miracle, nothing spectacular. Like maybe getting Mephistopheles off of his back for good, or having the Ghost Rider permanently exorcised from his soul. That would be nice. Having his life back.

"Here," Father Espinoza beckoned, leading Johnny through a doorway to the left of the altar. He followed the priest through a few small, disjointed rooms with old wine crates and boxes of rotting hymnals packed against the walls like prisoners. On the far wall of the last rubbish-choked room was a heavy wooden door with a line of rusty locks running down its edge. The old man bent and began to work the bolts free with his trembling, bony fingers.

"Is no much," he apologized in his heavy accent. "I use it for help de family and come from over Mexico." He pronounced it _Mehico_. "Is a long time since family come here again."

Johnny, whose arms were beginning to tire, gave Blackheart a little chuck and repositioned his body. His head slid against Johnny's sweat-stained tanktop, leaving a smear of blood over his heart like the mark of Passover.

"How far are we from the border?" he asked, though he didn't really care. Hell could be within spitting distance for all it mattered—and it might as well, all things considered.

Father Espinoza frowned, his leathery brow creasing like an old treasure map. "Six kilometer? Seven? Is no far . . . But de desert is _grande_, and de sun kill so much family. So much die before San Miguel." He gave a fleeting glance at Blackheart, dropped his eyes, and swallowed with difficulty. "What is he's name?"

"Blackheart. That's how I know him, at least."

The priest nodded quickly, and Johnny was intrigued to see the old man's eyes glistening wetly. _Maybe he's scared, _thought Blaze._ I know I am. Poor guy._

The hinges wailed like ghosts as Father Espinoza opened the door. Stairs led down into a hellish, frightening darkness. A wave of cool dank air washed over the sweat on Johnny's neck. He shivered as he gazed at the black pit of a cellar that seemed more like the bowels of a man-eating monster.

The priest began the descent, unbothered by the darkness. He seemed to have memorized the placement of each step. Blaze followed carefully, stair by creaking stair, one foot in front of the other, half-expecting to step down onto nothing but thin air and end up like Alice down the rabbit hole, falling forever and ever. Straight through Hell and out through Shanghai. (If he was lucky.)

After what seemed like fifty stairs or fifty minutes, Johnny's boot met with the cellar's rugged stony floor. He heard Father Espinoza moving around in the dark ahead, and suddenly a rectangular ray of yellowy light shot down through the blackness. The old man set aside the piece of wood that had been blocking the small window high on the cellar wall, and moved down to uncover the rest. The windows were about ground level, all of their glasses cracked and stained with dirt. As more light was let into the cellar, Johnny was able to see with greater clarity what was to become his home for the next several months, though he did not know it.

It was a large, open area, perhaps as long and wide as the church's footprint. Slivers of light shone through the cracks in the wooden floor above. Up and down the room thick wooden pillars supported the weight of the upper floor, like a gathering of silent Atlases. The far corner was overflowing with boxes and broken furniture and old signs and buckets, brooms, mops, even a partially-smashed upright piano on which hymns might have been played long ago. The windows above this unconquerable mass of refuse were unreachable, so they remained shrouded and dark. A stout iron beam in the center of the room stretched up from the stone floor and disappeared into the planks overhead, whether structural or some kind of water pipe, Blaze didn't know. Behind the stairs was a series of doors spaced evenly apart — maybe closets or small rooms—all of them closed except for one. As more light entered the cellar Johnny perceived the grimy edge of a prehistoric toilet and a mold-stained bathtub from the 1940s. He grimaced as if with pain, but he had seen worse—he was a carnie kid, after all.

Adjacent to the decaying bathroom was a narrow nook in the corner, consisting of a sink with an old fashioned hand pump mounted on the side, a wall of rat-eaten cabinets, and a sad little "table" made out of a large industrial cable spool. Broken liquor bottles and crumpled newspapers littered the surface and surrounding floor. A few retro appliances and shattered dishes stood lonesomely on the counter. A thin layer of dust cloaked everything like a gauzy film.

"Is a long time when I use this," Father Espinoza repeated. "I am sorry if is no very good."

Johnny squatted down. "This will do just fine," he said, laying Blackheart's body on the floor. His hands were still bound together at the wrist with the leather belt, though Johnny doubted it would last long if the little monster woke up. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the worried priest. "Thank you. _Gracias_."

"You're welcome, Señor . . .?"

"Johnny." No sense in giving his surname—it would only get him into trouble. "My name is Johnny."

The old man nodded as if he understood. "I am Padre Fernándo Espinoza. This is my church, de Church of San Miguel." His peered down at Blackheart, whose only movements came from the slight rising and falling of his breast. There was fear in his eyes, as well as a gleam of concerned interest. "You have bring a . . . a great _abominación_ with you, Señor Johnny. Who is him, this Black-heart? How can you know he's name?"

Johnny took a seat on a nearby crate that looked as if it had once been used to hold chickens. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His ponytail draped off of his shoulder as he clasped his hands together and stared at Blackheart, who even in sleep seemed no less dangerous than a nuclear warhead. A warhead capable of a deathtoll to the tune of around six billion.

"He is the prince of demons," said Blaze slowly. "The son of Satan, _el Diablo Grande_."

Espinoza's eyes widened and he shrank back against one of the wooden support beams.

"I know him because I met him a few years ago . . . and because I'm a demon, too." Johnny flexed his left hand slowly, and the flesh melted away from bone in a curtain of orange fire. The priest uttered a low cry of terror, but he did not flee. He continued to stare fixedly at Johnny's hand until the flames disappeared and muscle and flesh regrew over the skeletal digits.

"I'm a slave to the Devil, or I used to be, before I went rogue," he went on, not really concerned if Father Espinoza was still following; he was speaking to himself. "But I'm not a bad person. I try to use my powers for good. Mephistopheles has taken everything from me—my whole life and everyone who was a part of it—so I'm taking away from him all of the evil that would end up in Hell, feeding the flames of his goddamn furnace. I'm taking his power away from him, one soul at a time."

Johnny grinned, little more than a sad smirk. "You could call me a Shepherd of Lost Souls. The demon inside me, the Ghost Rider, he leads me to evil, and when I find it I put the fear of God into the hearts of the wicked. I guess it works sometimes, but I wouldn't know. I never stick around to find out. I have to keep moving. Evil never sleeps."

The priest was silent for a moment, perhaps trying to translate Johnny's story in his head. Finally he said, "You are like Jesús."

Blaze shook his head. "Jesus wasn't a monster. He wasn't driven by a need for revenge. I am." He sighed, a heavy sound filled with long years of pain. "I'm doing this for myself, for no reason other than getting back at the Devil. I might as well be digging to China with a plastic spoon."

Espinoza wet his dry, papery lips, his demeanor suddenly energetic. "But you take de Devil's son . . . if you can make good in him. And revenge against de Devil, so _grande_!"

"I see what you're saying, Padre, but I don't think even I could ma—"

A wet gurgle came from the floor, and Blackheart let out a frame-rattling cough that sent spatters of blood raining onto his face. Johnny stood up so fast that the crate turned over; Father Espinoza yelped, sprinted to the base of the stairs and froze, waiting for one more reason to flee, his whole body rigid with terror.

Blackheart continued to cough raggedly, a phlegmatic, tearing sound. He rolled over onto his side, gagged, convulsed, then vomited a thick pool of blood onto the stone floor.

"Jesus _Christ_," Johnny uttered, not entirely in vain, as he stared with disbelief at what seemed to be a full gallon of crimson liquid spreading between the stones. It was a dark red, black in some places, and seemed to be almost boiling with heat.

With considerable effort Blackheart raised himself to his knees. He leaned over and retched again, spine arching, acid and bile and mucous mixing with what he had already expelled. That seemed to empty him, but he continued to heave and spit, drooling long strings of viscous saliva into the puddle. After another moment he stopped gagging and began to breathe. It was an ugly rasping sound, like air being sucked through a perforated hose. Johnny and Father Espinoza looked on with horrified fascination, stone-still and all eyes. The demon crawled a short distance, his tied hands making him as awkward as a three-legged dog, before crumpling to the floor. A few seconds later the moaning began, loud and pathetic. He withered into a fetal position and lay there, shuddering frailly, his groans filled with unutterable agony.

The old priest seemed to snap out of his trance then; he darted away from the stairs and hurried toward the decrepit kitchen. Johnny, hoping that Blackheart would lose consciousness again, slowly crouched at his side and watched for any signs of attack. When none came he reached out and laid a hand on the motionless shoulder. Blackheart started and cringed, sheltering his head with his bound hands as if he expected to be beaten.

"It's alright," Johnny said in a low, reassuring tone. "I'm not gonna hurt you. You're safe here."

The demon's body gradually relaxed, and he made no other movements except for the slight rise and fall of his shoulder. Each breath he took sounded like it could be his last. "Blackheart?" No response.

Suddenly Father Espinoza was back, kneeling down beside Johnny with a metal bucket half filled with dingy water. "_Rápidamente, él a su vez sobre su espalda. El podía ser asfixia a la muerte!_"

". . . What?"

He made a hurried circular motion with his hand. "_Rodar, rodar!_"

"Roll him over? Is that what you mean?"

Espinoza nodded.

Johnny swallowed down his nervousness and carefully turned Blackheart over onto his back. His looks had not improved since his rescue. His dark eyelids were shut, his lips shining red like a brand new Corvette. It was hard to imagine the demon's handsome, arrogant face underneath that mutilated mask. The blisters on his sunburned flesh had drained and now pink skin was peeling off in patches. The cuts, scrapes and bruises weren't faring much better. The heat seemed to have aggravated his injuries. While he seemed unconscious for the moment, Blaze wasn't going to make any bets on it.

"_Siéntese erguido_," said the priest, then remembered himself and added, "Up. Make him up. _Vertical_."

"Right. Okay."

Johnny shuffled into place, grasped Blackheart under the arms, and pulled him up. The reaction was immediate.

Blood drops sprayed into the air as Blackheart let out a hysterical scream. Father Espinoza fell onto his back, almost knocking the bucket over. The frenzied demon thrashed and started kicking his legs, straining against the belt binding his wrists and spitting like a viper. The Ghost Rider overthrew Johnny's instinct to let go and run; instead he locked his hands around Blackheart's chest and braced himself. The hellion continued to shriek and struggle, but was in no position to fight with his arms pinned uselessly and his energy rapidly waning. It was only a minute or two at best, but Johnny couldn't have been more relieved when Blackheart finally ceased his violence and went limp with exhaustion. With a resigned sigh Blaze sat himself on the floor and held the _abominación_ in the V-shaped space between his legs. Blackheart lay still, panting grotesquely and twitching every few seconds.

"Christ," Johnny grunted. "What a nightmare. Look at all this fucking blood." It covered the floor. And now it covered Johnny. He could feel it, slimy and warm and growing sticky as it cooled on his bare arms.

Espinoza had pulled himself off the floor and taken up the bucket. He kneeled down beside Blaze and rolled up his sleeves, exposing the sinewy thin forearms of a man who had spent his life working in the sun. He dipped his cupped hands into the water, paused as if to reconsider, then carefully lifted them and let a cascade of the soothing liquid pour over the bloody pulp of Blackheart's face. The demon gasped and squirmed, but did not resist. The water seemed to revive him a little, and Espinoza repeated his ministrations until the front of the demon's shirt was soaked and the blood was rinsed from his skin. The whiteness of Blackheart's pallor made his bruises stand out like ugly purple nebulae. And then, displaying greater bravery than Johnny thought the old man was capable of, he held his cupped hands to Blackheart's lips. He tipped them, allowing the water to trickle past the Blackheart's mouth. He drank until the hands were empty, and then he let out a long breath. It sounded much better than before.

Johnny raised his eyes to the Father. "If you want us to leave now, just say it."

Espinoza stiffened his lips, almost as if he was insulted. "No. You go and he is death. You kill him, I know. Or he kill you, and all are lost. Here you has de church, and God. You stay here, Señor Johnny. You make him good, and you make everything good. I will help."

Blaze felt his throat tightening. He knew that the priest meant what he said—the seriousness in his eyes was evidence enough—but it still seemed unbelievable. No God-fearing man in his right mind would volunteer to do what Father Espinoza had already done.

"Why?" he asked softly. "Why are you helping us?"

Espinoza rose to his feet like the fragile old man that he was. "Because God put de Devil in your road, Johnny, and de road bring you to me."

He bent slowly and picked up the bucket. "Come," he said. "We get him and clean de blood off."


End file.
